Struggling to Hook Up With Viewers

When Mike Connors starred in the CBS crime drama “Mannix” during the 1960s and ‘70s, just about every TV set in the country could tune him in. Yet when Connors helps launch the nation’s newest cable network at the annual National Cable Television Assn. convention in downtown Los Angeles today, fewer than 4 million households will be able to watch his old series.

“We’ve got ‘Mannix’ reruns, we’ve got the old ‘Sonny and Cher’ show, we’ve even got classic commercials,” says Rich Cronin, president of TV Land, a spinoff of Nickelodeon’s popular Nick at Nite service.

What his network doesn’t have, Cronin concedes, is Southern California outlets.

“I’ve had meetings but can’t release anything official yet,” Cronin explained in a telephone interview earlier this month, later confirming that only one local cable system was signed up--Marcus Cable in Glendale.

A spokeswoman for Century Cable in Santa Monica said the system “is considering whether to add TV Land and, if so, where to put it.”

The dilemma for Century--and thousands of other cable operators across the country--is how to accommodate scores of wannabe networks on systems that are already overflowing. There are an estimated 120 program services in existence and in the works.

“Even if you have the best new channel in the world, we can’t add it to a lot of our systems because they’re filled with other services and because [federal] regulations require that we carry local TV stations,” explains Mark Nathanson, president of Falcon Cable, which serves about 165,000 subscribers from Malibu to San Bernardino--and isn’t carrying TV Land.

The current channel shortage is a frustration for viewers as well as programmers. Cable operators hold a de facto monopoly in their franchise areas, making it virtually impossible for subscribers to watch program services their system doesn’t carry. (The options: going to the home of a friend or relative in another area who does get other channels, or purchasing a direct-broadcast satellite service, whose programming includes networks not universally available through local cable franchises.)

“Getting cable carriage today is extremely difficult and very expensive,” says David Londoner, a media analyst with Schroder Wertheim in New York. “You’ve got to sugarcoat your deal to get operators to cooperate. Launching a new network often costs in the neighborhood of $100 million.”

Lee Masters, an MTV founder and now chief executive officer of cable’s E! Entertainment Television, puts the average break-even investment in an independent network closer to $125 million, which means profits are unlikely until 30 million homes are served. And these days a new channel is lucky to reach one-tenth of that total at launch time, thanks to limited channel capacity and an industry trend toward “a la carte” program tiers, whereby new channels can only be accessed if subscribers are willing to pay an extra monthly fee.

“The only way a new cable service makes sense these days is if it’s a spinoff of an existing channel and has its infrastructure in place,” Masters says, “or if it’s a so-called ‘ransom channel’--a service that gets carried as a requirement of certain business deals. For example, some operators added Fox’s fX channel in order to continue carrying Fox’s local TV stations.”

Since TV Land is a Nick at Nite spinoff targeting a proven audience of rerun fanatics, it should have an easier time establishing itself than new stand-alone services. Viacom, the multimedia giant that owns TV Land and networks like MTV, Nickelodeon and Showtime, says it’s prepared to lose big money for at least two years in a roll-out carefully calculated to lure cable operators. Systems will carry TV Land for free until 2001, and no national advertising will be sold until October 1997, unless the subscriber base hits 20 million first. The only revenue will flow to local operators, who will be given several minutes of ad time to sell each hour.

“We’ll bite the bullet in the short run,” concedes TV Land’s Cronin, “but this strategy will be better for us long term.”

But other big companies with many of the same advantages enjoyed by Viacom have discovered how tough the market is.

“Turner’s 2-year-old Cartoon Network is getting very good ratings and reviews, yet it’s limping along at about 6 million subscribers,” Londoner says. The Game Show Channel, launched about the same time by Sony, is seen by an even smaller number of viewers.

With the odds against financial success so overwhelming, why would a new cable channel even consider launching?

“Some of this is being done for competitive reasons,” says Larry Gerbrandt, a media analyst for Carmel-based Paul Kagan Associates. “Ted Turner now has his 24-hour Cartoon Network, therefore Nickelodeon is expanding its children’s lineup into prime time, displacing Nick at Nite. The idea is to find a programming niche that works and go with it around the clock.”

(Cronin says Nick at Nite will keep its slot on Nickelodeon for the time being, showing only classic sitcoms while TV Land schedules all manner of vintage programming.)

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Gerbrandt says increasing competition from satellite services and telephone companies is spurring cable programmers “to stake new territory,” noting that direct-broadcast satellites could have 12 million subscribers within the next four years. He predicts that the cable capacity bottleneck will largely disappear by 2003 as operators invest in upgraded technologies.

“The industry is gearing up for rebuilding,” confirms Falcon’s Nathanson. “Our company--and many like it--is converting to 750-megahertz fiber-optic cables, increasing our capacity to 90 channels from the 54 channels that is today’s average.”

As new channels open up, he explains, national programmers want their services to be ready to fill them.

In the meantime, systems are loath to drop any existing services because they fear the negative feedback and possible loss of business associated with such a move. Every channel, it seems, no matter how low its viewership, has a core of die-hard fans who will complain and threaten to stop subscribing if their favorite programming is taken away from them.

Cable operators still talk about the system that filled an unused channel temporarily by training a live camera on an in-studio aquarium. When the channel was filled a few weeks later with a new national network, the system was deluged with complaints.

“Operators add networks very deliberately because they get angry letters whenever a service gets removed,” Gerbrandt says. “The operator wants to be sure that any service has high-quality programming and is well funded. It often takes two years of repeating their pitch before operators are comfortable enough with the concept and backing of a new service to add it to their lineup.”

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WHAT YOU’RE MISSING

Among the old series getting new life on the TV Land channel are “The Ed Sullivan Show,” “The Addams Family,” “That Girl,” “Gunsmoke,” “The Phil Silvers Show,” “Hill Street Blues,” “St. Elsewhere,” “Cannon,” “Mr. Ed,” “Green Acres,” “The White Shadow,” “Petticoat Junction,” “Love American Style” and “Hogan’s Heroes.” Some of these programs will also be seen tonight in a TV Land simulcast on Nick at Nite.